Life at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters
by Unknownhacker1
Summary: A series of One-shot glimpses about what it's like to live at the institute when the X-men are not out saving the world.
1. The Voodoo Incident

Disclaimer: I own nothing... just meant for humor!  


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To say that Rogue was tired of Jean's attitude… was like saying that open heart surgery was just a scratch. Rogue could see why people seemed to like Jean better, it made sense. Rogue was angry and often snapped at people who came to close. Jean on the other hand was careful to hide her anger behind her perfect façade. Rogue knew that there were better ways to handle the growing rivalry with the Red head… but after today she could think of only one way to bring this to an end.

***Flashback***

Rogue walked into the kitchen and grabbed a banana from the counter before heading to the door. The rest of the inhabitants of the institute grew concerned. Rogue was notoriously not a morning person. It was an unspoken rule in the Xavier school. Before noon you approach with caution… but before Rogue had coffee… approach at your own peril. It was common knowledge among the new recruits that Rogue had once killed a new kid who'd consumed the last of the coffee. It was said that his body was buried in the woods behind the school, but his heart and eyes were in a sealed box beneath Rogue's pillow.

So here was the question… why had Rogue walked right past the half full pitcher of coffee that rested on the counter. No one was brave enough to ask, silence filled the room, until Kitty took a deep shuttering breath and called out to the moody Goth girl.

"Rogue, no coffee this morning?" Kitty instantly ducked into the position that the school insisted they learn incase of an earth quake. Her knees pressed to her chest, forehead against resting tightly on them, and her arms over her head. She had managed to turn herself completely intangible as well and accomplish all of this in a matter of seconds. It would have been impressive, if all of the others weren't just as braced for the explosion of temper. Rogue, who took all of this in carefully, decided to give them a little shock.

"I'm going to coffee with Wanda, John, and Remy this morning. So, I figured I'd wait to get my caffeine fix." She started back toward the door, when Jean decided to push her luck.

"You are going to coffee with Scarlet Witch, Pyro, and Gambit. Are you crazy? They are our enemies!" Jean stepped away from her Wheaties and walked toward Rogue with an angry expression.

"They aren't your friends Rogue, they're enemies! Why do you get that? What part of enemies don't you understand?" Jean continued to rant, but no one really heard her because Rogue had turned back toward them. More specifically back toward Jean and the others could see the rising violence in her green eyes. Kurt made hasty motions at Scott, trying to tell him to muzzle Jean, but Scott was too afraid to get that close to Rogue right before an infamous explosion of temper. Luckily Logan came down stairs and quickly took stock of the situation.

"Red, I'd back off if I were you. Stripes, I'll let you borrow the bike… as long as you leave now." He'd tried to get in between these two before and seen the results, thank god for his healing factor or he'd have been laid-up for a while. Rogue turned her cold sarcastic smile on Logan, leaving the others with icy chills racing down their spines. Scott, realizing this was his only chance to save Jean, darted in behind her, wrapped his hand around her mouth and dragged her away from Rogue, who saw all of this from the corner of her eye.

"No thanks Logan, Remy's picking me up." She could hear Jean yelling, muffled by Scott's hand as she exited the house.

*** End Flashback***

Rogue knew that Jean didn't trust her, but the truth was far worse. Jean was jealous of Rogue in a totally unexpected way. Two words… Remy LeBeau. It was in her eyes when he'd walked her to the door after their day together and asked the professor if he could stay for dinner. It had been their all through dinner as they talked and flirted and it had burned Rogue right to the soles of her Doc Martin's, when Jean had tried to make Remy notice her during the movie everyone sat down to watch after dinner.

So it came to this. Rogue knew it in the very core of Southern Heart. The one thing good little Baptist girls didn't play around with, but she knew about from her time playing in the bayou with the Voodoo's as a child. During a pause in the movie, while some headed to the restroom and others went to get more snacks (namely Kurt), Rogue slipped up to her room and gathered the things she needed.

The skull from an alligator in one hand and a fan made of chicken feathers in the others she headed back to the Rec. Room. When she entered she went right to were Jean was sitting. Trying to flirt with Remy, no less. Remy saw her, the skull, and the feathers and looked like he was going to die as he tried not to laugh. Jean was not as quick in noticing. Without a word to anyone, Rogue started chanting and sweeping the fan carefully over the skull in Jean's direction. As Rogue came to the end of the chant, everyone in the room's eyes were large and horrified.

After one final sweep that brought the feathers close to Jean's face, Rogue turned and left the room.

Only to return a few minuets later without her Voodoo tools. She sat calmly on Remy's lap and restarted the movie…

No one said a word…

After the movie was over Rogue saw Remy to his bike and waved him off. As she walked back inside she passed the still shocked Jean and in a clear loud voice she called.

"Here's another curse Jean, May all your bacon burn."

Ah… revenge it was so sweet.

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Extra points to anyone who knows where the "may all your bacon burn" curse comes from...

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	2. Mornings

Disclaimer: I own nothing...

Extra Credit to Mya G. for catching the Howl's Moving castle reference!

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Mornings at the Xavier school could only be summed up by one word…Chaos. Some of the more paranoid new recruits felt that the morning rush for bathrooms, food, and rides to school was a form of battle training. Something engineered by the ominous hand of the Wolverine, not that any of them would ever say this in the same building… or even state as him.

If you were unfortunate enough to get in line for the bathroom behind one of the more "girly" girls at the school you were doomed to wait. Some of the students had even taken up pranks and bribery to get a better place in line.

Once, before she'd left for the Brotherhood, Tabitha, who also went by the incredibly apropos name of Boom-Boom, startled the fearless leader of the x-men in to giving up his place in line. Scott, who was the only one with enough patience to wait for Jean in the morning without gripping or pounding on the door, was leaning against the wall in a light doze when a loud crack brought him abruptly out of sleep.

Acting on pure instinct he'd jumped up and ran toward the front door of the school screaming and shouting that the school was under attack. And in his attempt to protect the school from these mysterious invaders had left his place at the front of the line open for the taking…Tabitha took full advantage. Scott tried to regulate the bathroom lines after that… but it simply forced the students to be more clever with their pranks.

Jamie, being the Grasshopper to Rogue's Sensei, had once duct taped the doors of all of the students closed. It was only a temporary stop, but it gave him a chance to use the bathroom first that morning and it inspired Iceman to freeze everyone's door handles and locks so they wouldn't turn and everyone couldn't open their doors.

Kitty Pryde had phased her hand through Jean's clock one night, shorting it out… in hopes that she would oversleep. Jean knew about the trick and swapped her clock for Kitty's.

Kurt once ported down to the kitchen after waking up late one morning, grabbed a bunch of doughnuts and traded his way up to the front of the line. He knew the power of food and used it to his full advantage.

If it wasn't the bathroom's it was the food. In the morning, the normally spacious kitchen of the Xavier school seemed like it was the size of a postage stamp. Elbows slammed into counter tops, each other, and plate or bowls of food.

Logan thought it was funny in the morning to hide the doughnuts until the students had worked themselves into a frenzy and throw into the middle. He said he liked to stand back and watch the feeding frenzy. Remarking with pride that he'd seen pack of rabid dog who were less violent about food then these kids. The Professor put a quick stop to that behavior.

Now, there were some at the institute that didn't buy into the morning panic. Some who where lucky enough or feared enough that they simply didn't have to fight the morning crowds. Pyro, the former Acolyte, now X-man… or "X-person" as the more feminist girls liked to say, was one of them.

He didn't have to fight for doughnuts because on his second day in the house, his first official day as an "X-person"… he'd walked into the kitchen, into the din and frenzy, jumped up on the kitchen table, pulled out his lighter and started screaming.

"Back up! Back up!" He held his lighter out in front of his life a weapon, which it was in his hands. When everyone had cleared a path to the food, he scooped up two glazed doughnuts and one Cherry Pop tart, and then bounded away cackling and talking about what a good team he and Betty made. It was assumed that Betty was his lighter.

Another one of these feared/lucky people was Rogue. Now, there were very few new recruits who weren't warned right from the get go, by the "New Recruit Gossip Hotline" that the Rogue was dangerous and that in the morning two things were left untouched for her and her alone.

The first being coffee…

The second being the last Jelly filled Doughnut.

The New Recruits, who would gossip about anything and anyone without cause, reason, or any regard for the law of the universe; had failed to inform one of their numbers of these two important truths…

One morning as Rogue sat enjoying her coffee and ignoring the hustle and bustle that was currently leaving a wide berth around her, a hand reached out to take the last jelly doughnut which sat like a temptation in the pink box in the center of the table. Some said that she left it to taste the strength of their wills. Other remarked that it was like when Vlad Dracula left a golden chalice in the slums around his city. No one dared touch it for fear of his wrath.

No one had warned poor young Dazzler, a ditzy blonde, who had instantly been taken in by the preppy khaki wearing set at the school, that the last doughnut was Dracula golden chalice. Before her fingers closed around the fried dough Rogue's hand shot out and her fork slammed down into the soft center of the doughnut, right between Dazzlers fingers. Cherry filling spilled out around the tines of the fork, Dazzler quickly took her hand back and check for injuries. Rogue left the fork in the Doughnut and no touched it as she finished her coffee.

Remy LeBeau was one of the lucky ones. It was well noted the Remy LeBeau, also a former Acolyte turned "X-person", had Jedi powers. Once just before the mad dash to various vehicles he came to the table with an empty plate. Noting that all the food was already on other people's plates and that the lone Jelly doughnut in the center of the table had been claimed by his fiery southern friend, he sat down. No one saw exactly how he did it, but before long he had a good portion of scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and the only piece of un-burnt bacon that the Xavier School had seen since the Voodoo incident…which no one dared speak of.

The strange thing was that the piece of bacon had been Kurt's and had in fact been destined for his mouth at the very moment that it was swiped by Remy. The New Recruits and had concluded that very morning that Remy LeBeau was a Sith Lord and the use of his Jedi Mind Powers for the procurement of food made him even cooler.

If after all of these, the students didn't feel the need or want to crawl back to their rooms broken and defeated… the mad rush at exactly 7:49am to get to cars of various shapes and sizes would do it.

There were as all with all things at the institute rules to the morning rush.

NEVER get in a car when Kitty Pryde was driving.

NEVER get in a car when Kitty Pryde was driving and

if you get a car when Kitty Pryde was driving see rule #1 and 2

Those who were fast on their feet made it to the x-van before the others. They were allowed to sit toward the front, not in the back… which it was agreed smelled like sweat, old cheese, and feet.

The older kids divided themselves up between Scott's convertible and Jean's car. They were on the road by 7:52am. Let it never be said that the X-men did understand the important things in life like how hot Remy and Rogue looked to members of the respective opposite sex when they took off on his bike together, getting a seat that didn't smell like someone's old gym shoes where being shove up your nose, or not letting Kitty Pryde behind the wheel of anything more powerful than a push-lawn mower… come to think of it… may be not even that…

Ah Mornings, they can be killer.

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	3. The Holidays

Hey all1 There is a reference to a Holiday called Holi in here. It is celebrated in India and it is a holiday to banish demons. Special bon fires are lit and dyed powders of tons of colors are thrown at each other to ensure that no demon is within or can posses you.

Just a heads up. Enjoy!

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Holidays at the Xavier Institute resembled an ant colony after it's been kicked over and the queen's been burned alive by a moody pre-teen with their parent's magnifying glass. Rogue loved the holidays, each and every one of them… she did, however, dread holidays at the institute. Sometime she questioned the sanity of teachers at the institute, in particular the sanity of the Professor.

It was the same very year…

In February, Valentine's day would roll around. Jean and Scott would make puppy dog eyes at each other and continue to insist, when asked that they were not dating. This tension led to several fights, of course. This was a source of great entertainment to the other students at the institute, most would abandon whatever else they where doing and gather around to watch two do go at it. Bobby, also known as Iceman, would commentate like a boxing announcer at a title fight. Jean was never happy with the audience, but she quickly learned that she couldn't escape them. Thanks to the thriving gossip network at the institute, the students had the Scott/Jean fight response time down under a minuet. The moment that there were even stirrings of a fight, text messages where sent and received in a flurry of activity matched only by two things: the response to a call to suit up and loosing at a game of Baiting the Wolverine. Once all the hubbub around Valentine's day died down it was on to the next holiday. Which Rogue was eternally grateful for, Valentine's day wasn't bad, but after eating enough candy hearts to sink the titanic one year, and then spending the next day throwing up enough partially digested candy heart to sink the titanic, she decided the holiday was a bust.

After Valentine's Day, late in February, was one of Rogue's favorite holidays. Mardi Gras. Not that Mardi Gras in New York was anything like it was south of the Mason Dixon line, but Rogue figured it was better than nothing. On the morning of Mardi Grad she'd don her dark clothes, put her make-up on… and then just to spice up the day add several strands of plastic beads that she wore only once a year. Needless to say there were some rumors about how exactly she got the beads and why she only wore them on Mardi Gras, but she let the students talk and neither confirmed or denied any of the rumors… just making the students more curious. Then, that night, she would make a delicious meal of spicy Cajun food like she remembered from home. After Remy LeBeau joined the institute the two would celebrate together, enjoying their favorite anti-holiday holiday.

So February would come and go with only a few incidents, Kurt putting love notes from Scott on all the boys' beds. Jean waking up the morning of Valentine's Day with Scott's name emblazoned across her forehead in red lipstick, her room covered in pictures of the one eyed leader of the X-men. No one ever claimed that prank, but rumors flew that Rogue, the master of pranks at the institute, had done it, though once again nothing was confirmed or denied by the Goth. Kitty "accidentally" phasing into the bathroom while Scott was getting dressed and much to his chagrin giving him a once over and then phasing out… only to later present him with a string of cheap plastic beads in a garish pink color.

Easter was relatively tame… if you could call Kurt and Kitty's surprise Easter egg hunt tame. Kurt dressed like an Easter Bunny running down the hall screaming that his eggs where missing and he need help to find them. The sight caused more than one person to fall to the floor laughing. His suit short sleeved and cut into shorts instead of pants. Leaving his bright blue furry arms and legs exposed to the world, not to mention his face. That wasn't the worst of it. The worst was that Kitty had managed to procure a lime green bunny suit, which classed horribly with Kurt. The Egg hunt was just as much of a fiasco. Kitty had filled the plastic eggs and hard boiled the real ones… then her and Kurt had hidden them. In places no one could get to.

Like: inside one of the walls, on the roof, inside one of Wolverine's boots, in the professors office, in glass beakers in Hank's lab…

Yeah… Easter was a blast.

Thanksgiving started out quiet… at least until Rogue convinced Kitty, Remy, Kurt, and surprisingly Hank to celebrate Holi on the day before thanksgiving. The Holi celebration was to be as traditional as they could make it. So fires where lit in all the fireplaces and special incenses was burned, which was strong enough to render Logan unconscious, and armed to the teeth with pouches of various colored powers the celebration began. It was almost a five hours before the chaos died down. Everyone was covered from head to toe in various colored splotches. Scott got hit in the face with bright red by Hank so he had no one he could complain to. Rogue drew a mustache in bright yellow on Logan's face, as he was still unconscious this was possible and as Kitty decided "Necessary, after all his boots were on." It was all in good fun, but the institute had taken a thrashing. Powder was everywhere, which lead the Professor to state that all holiday celebrations had to be prescheduled and to change the flooring in the halls so that they could be hosed down if this got this crazy again.

Rogue, hearing that all holidays had to be scheduled, proceeded to find all the odd holidays she could and present a schedule to the professor which included but was not limited to: The Day the Music Died Day, Disaster Day, Sleeping Day, What if Cats and Dogs Had Opposable Thumbs? Day, Snowman burning day, Panic Day, New Name Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day… and so on and so forth. The Professor was not as assumed as she was.

The year would always come to a slow close around Christmas… like everything that had happened in the 355 odd days that led to this moment were getting it down… making the year as grouchy and lethargic as Rogue that one morning that the coffee pot quit working (let's say atomic bombs had been more subtle and controlled then she was that morning). Still, Christmas brought out the best in everyone. Kurt would port around the room with mistletoe hitting on all the girls, Scott would try to reprimand him but he'd be to busy going his impression of Rudolph, turning bright red every time Jean looked at him. Rogue would receive random unmarked gifts, some she knew where from Remy, but other where a form of appeasement… hoping that she wouldn't kill them in the year to come. Finally a day or two before the actual holiday the school would empty out as everyone headed home to be with their families. With everyone gone it was quiet and still, which led Rogue to roll a tumbleweed down the hallway, whistling as made it's way toward the end of the hall, Wooh-oooh Wa-Wa-Wa… just to time kill.

Ah… The Holidays.

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	4. Television

Disclaimer: I own nothing...

This is all just for fun!

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There are something at the institute that organized and quantified, like chores and cooking schedules, but there are some things that were beyond the control of lists and sanity. TV… was one of these things, that was beyond control of any known force in the universe. The professor had started out with good intentions. He'd purchased several TV's for the institute, including a big screen for the Rec. Room, but without fail there were epic battles for control of the Institutes five coveted television sets on every night of the week.

Each of the students at the institute had their favorite shows and were ferocious in their fight to get it on the first TV schedule. That lasted as long as it took for the professor to print it out and post it in the Rec. Room and was worth about as much as a snow cone in Antarctica.

The list left out some very important contenders.

In particular it left out Rogue's Thursday night favorite; Supernatural. It was an underappreciated minority as far as Rogue was concerned… and had failed to make it on the list.

At least until the first Thursday when Rogue walked into the Rec. room with her salt and burn t-shirt on and raised holy hell that the TV was on another show. After that… the room was empty and the TV left on Supernatural every Thursday without question. Some people where brave enough to stay but… they were few and far between. Unlike the other's who fought for places on the TV schedule, Rogue was like the boogey man… or woman of the Institute so her struggle for TV dominance had been swift, brutal, and unforgiving. Needless to say, the Schedule became more of a suggestion after that…

Kurt and Kitty had started ported and phasing people out of the Rec. Room to ensure that they were able to enjoy J.J. Abrams at his mind bending best every Wednesday night. This had been met by much resistance from Jean who insisted that America's Next Top Model was far cooler, and less likely to induce temporal displacement, than Lost. In response Kurt and Kitty had waged an all out war against Jean for an entire week after she'd somehow finagled her way into watching ANTM instead of Lost. After that Jean relegated herself to the downstairs TV. Although it was much smaller it was the second most fought over TV in the school and she had to play dirty to get her TV time, which is to say she threatened to make everyone in the room see things for a month if they didn't agree with her programming choice.

No one knew exactly what Scott watched on TV every Tuesday night, but it was a big secret and a source of much speculation. Some people where allowed to come into the professor's sitting room to watch it with him… but entrance required a secret password that changed every week.

The institute's thriving gossip network had the programming choice at everything from porn to Martha Stewart, to old Power Ranger and Barney reruns. As no one was able to get a man on the inside to discover their secret… it was purely speculation. It was said was the Rogue knew what happened in that room every Tuesday night…

But she wouldn't tell… unless you were willing to make a deal with her. Which they knew was a bad idea… because all of them had been forced to watch a supernatural episode warning them about making deals with devils… not that Rogue was evil or anything… just dangerously manipulative and willing to use her powers for evil.

So week nights at the Institute fell into a somewhat easy pattern of Television programming and volatile arguments over the validity of one scientific principal/exorcism right/elimination and who was watching what and why.

At least until the time that the cable went out.

Thanks to the Brotherhood of Mutants the cable station had demolished and the entire town of Bayville was without cable. In response the professor locked himself in his office and barricaded the door. Mrs. Monroe had taken an emergency vacation to see her friend in California. Hank had immediately donned his safari gear and loaded up a gun with tranquilizer darts… just in case.

Logan seemed to be the only one not afraid of the coming storm. Then again, he may have stayed in town to see the chaos first hand… no one was really sure.

The first day was… different, not bad… but it was only the beginning.

It wasn't too long before all out madness overtook the institute.

Kurt had set the tone for the two weeks by porting himself out into the woods around the house and for all intents and purposes going feral. He wore only a pair ripped shorts and leaves in his fur. With his image inducer off and his fur sticking in various directions he looked like a demon… which lead to problems with Rogue and her supernatural obsession. Sometime during the first week, as boredom took over and she ran out of books to read, Rogue decided to make the best of their summer vacation without cable and exorcise Kurt. It had taken some careful planning on her part; including laying a trap of gut busters and other favorite munchies of the now wild x-man. Her biggest concern was that he would escape her devil's trap using his porting power but a little knock on the head and a power zap from her and he was unconscious… and ready for his exorcism. This had frightened most of the Institute students into silence… at least until Jamie had come running out of the kitchen hold salt and a cup of water with a rosary in it screaming 'Got it, Let's do this thing… and then we can get some pie!'

The silence had been broken only by the sounds of running feat and a loud Latin chant.

Remy who'd stayed in his room for the past couple of days… and was otherwise unaffected by the loss of TV as he didn't like to watch it, came down the stairs to this sight. He immediately grabbed his jacket and left the house, followed by screams that he was next.

He stayed gone for several hours. During which Kurt woke up and ported away; was captured, knocked-out, and exorcised again… then woke up and escaped again… only to get caught again. It was sick cycle that lead to five exorcisms and Kitty being called a ghost and "trapped" in her room by a thick line of salt across her door way. When she'd tried to protest Jamie had insisted that it was EVP, which lead Rogue and him into the woods, with a gas can and all the salt from the kitchen, to find her bones.

Thankfully before they could accidentally burn down the forest or catch Kurt again, Remy reappeared with the first four seasons of Supernatural on DVD and enough junk food to last a year. All three of them locked themselves in the Rec. Room after that.

Kurt, Rogue, and Jamie were not the only ones to be effected by the loss of the TV or adult supervision. Life at the institute had broken down. Food was being horded, the kitchen resembled a war zone and getting water was an as dangerous as trying to steal food from someone, the bathrooms were guarded like Fort Knox, holes appeared in the walls, and the hallways were reminiscent of Danger Room gauntlets.

It was Mad Max… Institute style.

Hank was prepared for this. He could often be found hiding in abandoned rooms or under the overturned coach in the living room with his tranquilizer darts. Any student he felt was in danger of succumbing to illness, exhaustion, hunger… or any other aliments was quickly sedated and carted off to the infirmary in what could only be called a catch and release program. Hank would swiftly diagnose the problem, treat it, and let the student go… back into the wild as it were.

Thankful the city worked swiftly to restore the cable. Within two weeks it was turned back on. Sanity was quick to return to the institute, though their time as wild animals had left lasting scars on them and the school. Kurt would snarl at people who came to close to his food for the first couple of days, toilet paper and food kept disappearing from the house and Jamie had official adopted into the fold by Rogue and Remy… giving him frightening new power over the other new recruits.

Logan had watched all of this with a keen eye and an amused smile… at least until he saw what had happened to his precious Danger Room… after that he heartily respected the power of TV.

Ah… TV, can't live with it and certainly can't live without it.

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	5. The Rumor Mill

Hey all... sorry for the delay. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters below.

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The gossip network at the Xavier Institute had the ability to circulate and "verify" a rumor in the amount of time it took the Weekly World News' writers to wake-up in the morning after a long night dreaming of Bat Boy's alien baby.

It had been theorized that if students at the Institute started to mind their own business and stopped gossiping about one another the walls of the school would promptly collapse. It was the most active on demand information network in the Northern Hemisphere.

There was for example the time that Rogue, according to the grapevine, challenged the Wolverine to a Duel, with pistols at Dawn or swore to nail the skin of her enemy to her door… at least that's what Amara said to Jubilee one day before their Danger Room session started… which thanks the biggest game of telephone in the Northern Hemisphere morphed into the rumor that before joining the X-men Rogue had been a head hunter and learned the secret art of shrinking heads and that in her room she kept the Shrunken Heads of those who had dared crossed her. Rogue had nothing to say on the matter… though she did correct the two new recruits who had accidentally been talking about it within earshot of her… Shrunken heads, she told them, were actually called Tsantsas, before walking away. Needless to say that had started a whole new frenzy of rumors.

Remy scoffed at these rumors and in a scene straight from summer camp, sat down with the New Recruits surrounding him and hanging on his every word… told them of the true horrors of Rogue's room. He told them of the real skeleton she kept in her closet, of the blood that she mixed into the paint on her walls, of the black magic books she kept in her room… and how late at night when the moon was full she'd drag a new recruit from their room and sacrifice them in a voodoo ritual. When asked about it later… he would of course deny everything… but most chalked it up to the belief that even the great Remy LeBeau was not immune to the call of the Rogue. This, of course, changed Rogue's status in the house from cautionary to Legendary and elevated Remy to something close to Godhood.

Maybe it was the fact that telepaths loved to chit-chat with anyone who would listen about anyone else's dirty little secrets or that Kitty, who could phase through walls, had no respect for privacy and took great joy in phasing into a room at the most uncomfortable and awkward moments.

Whatever lead the students of the Institute to gossip it was impossible to keep them from doing so. This unfortunate truth was tested and proved in the weeks following the Professor's declaration that Gossiping about other team members could get you grounded… this rule came on the heels of a rumor that Rahne, aka Wolfsbane, was not actually a mutant but a werewolf… and an unfortunate incident involving a stolen silver spoon and a dark hallway.

The Professor liked to think that the rule had been followed for at least an hour before the first rumor had started… but deep down he knew that it was not true. No sooner had the students, more accurately the New Recruits, walked out of the conference room… when the first rumor fell from Jubilation Lee's lips.

As they had been leaving the room, a curious series of events, which had started much earlier in the day with moldy bread and Jean's unfortunate habit of eating without looking, were coming to a explosive and slightly vomit-ous conclusion. The exit of the New Recruits from the conference room was timed perfectly with Jean Grey leaving the bathroom, whipping her mouth with a hand towel… and Scott asking in a loud voice if she was feeling better.

What could have been construed as stomach flu and the touching concern of a loving boyfriend… was taken in an entirely other direction… a more pregnant direction.

Before Lunch rumors had Jean pregnant with Scott's baby, before dinner she was pregnant with Magneto's baby and trying to pass it off as Scott's, before "lights out" that very night Jean was pregnant with an Alien Fetus sent to earth from Kurt's home planet with the sole intention of destroying civilization as they knew it.

Jean was less than pleased.

The next morning the Professor grounded two of the student who were talking about it and reiterated his rule about gossip. Within the hour the rumor said that Jean was pregnant with the Professors baby, hopelessly in love with Logan, and trying to dupe Scott into believing it was his.

Jean was even less pleased.

In fact the only one who seemed to be getting any enjoyment out of it was Rogue, who had started planting seeds of "truth" in the minds of poor hapless New Recruits.

After that, most agree, that the Professor gave up on his "No Gossip" rule and did what came naturally to him… locked himself in his study.

There are some who would say later that Rogue had been behind the whole thing, but most would agree that Remy LeBeau was the true mastermind behind the events that followed shortly there after. He joined forces with his dark lady love, Rogue, to convince some of the more gullible members of the X-men to help Jean prepare for the trails she would face as an unwed teenage mother.

Jean was on the verge of homicide by the end of the first week.

If the sympathetic looks and glances weren't enough, she received no less than five baby shower registry packets and one fury pink blanket from the New Recruits. Not to mention the revolving door of "Baby Daddies." Which included but was not limited to Pietro, the Blob, Toad, Juggernaut, More aliens, Twins from Magneto… and of course Scott playing the doting brainless pseudo daddy to the spawn of some other man.

It wasn't until that Friday night when Logan, also known as the Wolverine, returned home from destinations unknown (which was conveniently another source of great mussing by the Gossip Network) that the rumor started to die down. Logan came home wearing nothing but a bright pink towel and a flowered swim cap. Scrawled across his chest in permanent marker… the words "Mustache rides… $1.00" There were other things to ruminate on from that point forward.

That was the last time the Professor tried to stop the rumor mill at the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngster… and he realized, not for the first time, that his name might be on the building… but definitely was not in control of the situation.

Ah… Guns don't kill people, Rumors kill people.

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